Larry Harris, G42, Russia In China, Question

@variance:

This is not a comprehensive list, but as far as I know the following list probably accounts for ~90% of games and is pretty much the RUSSIA PLAYBOOK as I understand it:

build all infantry (optional: bid soviet infantry), march everything to Moscow, fly in Allied fighters, die slow. Hope the allies can save the day elsewhere.

same as #1 but send some units to Iraq or (not ‘and’) Finland to try and increase income.

build inf and mech R1 (optional: bid soviet infantry), buy time at Belarus, march far east troops home, fly in Allied fighters, check your battle calculator and buy artillery when its time, counterattack

build tanks R1 (optional: bid artillery on Eastern front), threaten counterattack to delay Barbarossa, take no sh!t from Italy, march far east troops home, counterattack opportunistically

build 3 mechs R1 and send planes to Yunnan (optional: bid fighters in moscow and stalingrad, and/or inf in yunnan and artillery in suiyuyan, shensi, szechwan, kweichow); far east troops go to Buryatia then Amur then Manchuria (optional: bid artillery out east), die, but watch Allies kill Germany

Gargantua, Cow, and others have discussed these in the past

This is actually a really good post; with a pretty complete breakdown of viable options.  Those are the primary concepts.

Herr KaLeun and ColonelCarter,

Thank you also for the added answer and explanation answers for transports offload ( Sorry Chris for diverging your sub topic ).
BH

Lanchester’s Law on wikipedia is the game theory I was thinking about.

If you dont like dice, you can always go Low Luck or No Luck.  However, I prefer ADS mainly because it means I get away scot free for years and years against AA Guns (i have the ultimate best record of surviving AA Guns and the absolute worst.  My worst record is 23 of 23 strategic bombers lost in a row (not all in one battle, I’da suicided if it was all in one battle!) and my current luck streak is still going with something like 50 misses in a row with AA Guns.)

My two cents says - if Germany attacks G1, then builds armor repeatedly, they’ll see a shortage of infantry soon enough. Their entire western flank, as said by others, will be eroded quickly. Killing tanks with infantry/artillery and a couple planes will be a nice laugh.

Don’t forget the power of the strafe to whittle down your opponent’s fodder, then fall back into reinforced positions.

As far as infantry vs. aircraft, oh yes. Most of my early games saw me buy an aircraft for the first three rounds - I like 4 fighters/2 tacs with Russia - but I’ve abandoned that over my past 3-4 games in favor of the all meat and potatoes purchase… land units only. After all, this isn’t a trade war we’re interested in, but a game of taking and holding key positions. The days of trade wars are over, imo. They were left behind in Anniversary. Aircraft can’t take a piece of land… all it can do is kill and retreat. I now prefer to set up overlapping defensive structures with a slowly growing mobile reserve, to be able to threaten multiple places.

Russia has to learn that they don’t have to fight for every IPC. Some are ok to let go. A trade war will result in a gradual erosion of Russian land units, and death.

no.

“Collect 10 IPCs each turn that Japan is not at war with the United States and has not invaded French Indo-China or made an unprovoked declaration of war against United Kingdom/ANZAC.
When Japan becomes at War with the Soviet Union.”

It wouldn’t be unprovoked.

@Detuite:

#6 Can german fighters in southern italy scramble in defence of the italian fleet off the coast.

If you’re playing Alpha+.1, yes.  If you’re playing by the box rules, no, as planes may only scramble from island airbases.

Thank you for the clarification!